Leading With Inclusion: How Inclusive and Accessible CX Unlocks Full Business Potential, with Stine Ringvig Marsal
In today’s increasingly diverse world, many businesses overlook accessibility in their service design, leaving customers with visible and hidden disabilities frustrated and underserved. This results in missed opportunities, lost revenue and diminished customer loyalty. Addressing this gap can elevate customer experiences and benefit the bottom line.
Stine Ringvig Marsal is Scandinavia’s leading expert on customer experience. With over 18 years of experience, she has fused traditional CX with a focus on accessibility, demonstrating how inclusive design enhances the experience for all customers. She recently delivered an insightful session on the complexities of inclusion and diversity in customer experience. Stine illustrated how businesses can make small changes to increase accessibility, build trust, and ultimately show how better service design leads to revenue growth and customer loyalty.
Keep reading to see our top takeaways from the session!
Understanding the Impact of Disability on Customer Experience
When exploring the topic of inclusion and diversity, realising just how vast and intricate the concept can be often leads to humbling moments. For many, it starts with a personal journey, reflecting on the diversity of customers served and the need for more awareness surrounding their experience.
Many people make choices based on a lack of accommodation for their unique needs. Staff may be unprepared to handle diverse customer requirements, leading to customers avoiding services. This creates negative experiences and impacts the business's bottom line by losing potential revenue and loyalty.
The solution? Simply listening to customers with disabilities and mapping their journeys reveals how inaccessible experiences can create significant anxiety.
The Misconception of Small Groups
Many businesses mistakenly assume that the needs of customers with disabilities are limited to a small group. In reality, individuals with both physical and non-physical disabilities represent a significant portion of the population, and their challenges are often overlooked. For example, while we might provide ramps or lifts for wheelchair users and believe we’ve met accessibility requirements, many individuals with non-physical disabilities often face similar challenges due to a lack of understanding of their unique needs. By embracing diversity and widening our understanding, we can create more effective customer experiences.
Listening to Unheard Voices
Relying solely on feedback from current customers provides an incomplete picture. It’s like asking friends what they think of you—they're already invested. However, real insights come from listening to those who avoid your service or choose never to return.
“I feel you don't have a real sensation of your performance unless you're really interested [in listening] to the customers who never come, who choose to never come, or who chose to leave to never return.”
There is a huge group of people who are not represented in typical surveys. Stine explains that when interviews are conducted with previously disengaged customers, it's revealed that many actively choose not to engage with certain services, not because they don’t want to buy, shop, or travel, but because they feel unwelcome. Often, these barriers are simple to fix.
Real-Life Stories: A Catalyst for Change
Listening to stories from those with invisible disabilities can inspire meaningful change. For instance, after implementing an employee training program based on insights from customer-journey mapping at Copenhagen Airport, Stine received critical feedback from customers and employees.
One passenger, a frequent flyer with severe anxiety, shared how he could finally travel without medication because the staff were trained to understand his condition. Also, an employee who had kept their ADHD and dyslexia private for 19 years shared how the training had encouraged them to reveal their true self at work for the first time. They were surprised and moved by the openness it inspired among colleagues, creating a more accepting environment. Moreover, a passenger with a hearing impairment revealed that, for the first time, they found the confidence to order a cup of coffee like everyone else, celebrating their accomplishment.
“Imagine that, having a customer saying, I'm so proud that I got to leave money with you today. Isn't that just insane? And I started thinking, all of these people, if they never buy a cup of coffee, we're losing so much money.”
These moments highlight the importance of fostering a culture of awareness and acceptance for customers and employees. Disability training can extend beyond customer service to transform the workplace.
The Business Case for Inclusion
The insights from implementing the employee training programme led to a stark realisation: businesses that fail to foster an inclusive customer experience risk losing money.
The numbers speak for themselves: In Denmark, the country Stine is from, 25% of the population has a hidden disability, which directly affects how they experience customer service. In businesses like Copenhagen Airport, which sees 30 million passengers annually, this represents 7.5 million people. A modest increase in accessibility could yield significant revenue gains; for instance, if just 25% of these passengers bought a cup of coffee, it could generate €7.5 million in additional annual revenue.
Businesses' end goal is to seamlessly guide customers to purchase, reducing marketing costs and increasing loyalty. Creating frictionless experiences benefits everyone, and improving accessibility is a simple way to achieve this. When companies design for the customers most challenged by their services, they enhance the experience for all.
“If you design to eliminate all of the bumps for the people who feel them the most, you will be designing for everyone.”
Inclusive design is not just about accommodating a minority; it’s about elevating the experience for everyone.
The Journey Toward Inclusion
For businesses overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential accommodations (from disabilities and LGBTQ+ inclusion to non-native speakers and cultural diversity), the key is to start small and think of it as a journey.
“How can we be inclusive to everyone? My point is [...]You don't need to be inclusive for everyone. You just have to start and think of it as a journey. Take it one step at a time.”
For example, cultural institutions like the opera often focus solely on visible disabilities, such as wheelchair accessibility. However, 20% of the population is neurodivergent, and their needs may not be accommodated in service design, even though simple and cost-effective solutions exist.
Stine walked us through a customer journey for a woman named Ann, who has autism and ADHD. She needs to meticulously plan every detail to visit a venue, from transportation to the café menu. Most venues fail to provide this information, forcing individuals like Ann to conduct exhaustive independent research.
Accessibility is big business, and there are multiple things you can fix immediately to improve the experience for all.
Practical Steps for Immediate Improvement
Provide clear information for preparation: Share comprehensive details such as transportation options, venue layout, restroom locations, and café menus in advance to help visitors plan effectively and feel comfortable. Include multi-channel communication and ticketing strategies to accommodate diverse needs and avoid over-reliance on self-service systems.
Highlight accessibility efforts: Make accessibility information easy to find, ideally on the homepage. Clear communication is crucial for visitors with hidden disabilities who may face higher energy demands due to mental preparation for outings.
Develop visual walkthroughs: Create simple videos showing key areas of the venue, starting from transportation points like bus stops or parking lots. Over time, expand this library to offer a comprehensive view of accessible features for all visitors.
Create user-friendly maps: Design clear and straightforward guides that are easy to read, ensuring essential information is accessible to everyone, especially first-time or disabled visitors.
Enhance customer service interactions: Provide resources like question lists to help visitors feel more prepared when interacting with customer service, reducing anxiety.
Build trust proactively: Openly share detailed accessibility efforts to reassure visitors, particularly those with hidden disabilities, and foster trust through transparency and commitment.
Inclusive Excellence as the Goal
Designing for those who experience the most significant bumps in customer experience elevates the experience for all. CX inclusive excellence should be the primary goal for any business seeking to enhance customer service.
While addressing every need immediately is unnecessary, starting small and viewing inclusion as a journey ensures steady progress. Each step towards inclusivity benefits not just individuals with disabilities but everyone interacting with the service.
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